U.S. reportedly orders halt on chip software sales to China

The U.S. administration has told U.S. companies that offer software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their services to Chinese groups, in the latest attempt to make it harder for China to develop advanced chips, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. A Chinese expert said that the move will backfire, only accelerating China's drive for self-reliance in key technologies.

Several people familiar with the move said the U.S. Department of Commerce had told so-called electronic design automation groups — which include Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens EDA — to stop supplying their technology to China, according to the Financial Times.

The Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the U.S. commerce department that oversees export controls, issued the directive to the companies via letters, according to the people.

Telecom industry expert Xiang Ligang told the Global Times on Thursday that the restrictions on EDA design software essentially demonstrate that the U.S. is attempting to strengthen tech containment on China through upstream technological blockades in the industrial chain. However, such restrictions are unlikely to succeed and backfire.

Chinese enterprises previously adopted foreign mature software primarily for efficiency, not due to a lack of independent R&D capabilities, the expert noted. The U.S.-imposed supply cutoff will only drive China to accelerate independent innovation. Far from suppressing China's semiconductor development, U.S. suppression will instead serve as a "catalyst" to propel the autonomy of Chinese industrial chain, Xiang said.

The move marks the latest effort by the U.S. to curb China’s ability to develop leading-edge artificial intelligence chips. This follows the recent release of guidance by the U.S. Department of Commerce that, under the pretext of so-called presumed violations of U.S. export control rules, attempts to impose a global ban on advanced Chinese computing chips, including specific Huawei Ascend chips.

China's Ministry of Commerce on May 21 called the U.S. attempt to globally ban advanced Chinese computing chips as a typical move of "unilateral bullying and protectionism" that seriously undermines global semiconductor industrial and supply chains, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian on May 16 slammed the U.S. over a recent announcement by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, which claimed the use of Huawei's Ascend chips risks violating U.S. export controls, as well as the bureau's warning to the public about the potential consequences of training Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) models with U.S. AI chips.

Lin told a routine press conference that the U.S. overstretches the concept of national security, abuses export controls and long-arm jurisdiction, and groundlessly and maliciously blocks and suppresses China’s chips and AI industry, which severely violates market rules, destabilizes global industrial and supply chains, and undermines Chinese businesses’ legitimate rights and interests. 

China firmly opposes this and absolutely does not accept it. China urges the U.S. to drop its protectionist acts and unilateral bullying, and stop its egregious suppression on China’s tech businesses and AI industry. China will take firm measures to defend its right to development and Chinese businesses’ legitimate rights and interests, Lin said.